Page 24 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Twenty

Nathaniel

“ I haven’t seen you look at a woman like this since the last time I was in a room with you and Hollyn Davis,” Cal says as he takes his place beside me, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching Maren, Kinsley, and Hollyn tending to the black lab and her puppies on the other side of the room.

Mom and her litter are tucked into a secure corner in a baby pool with the three women fawning over the tiny pups.

“Fucking pathetic, right? After all this time to be right back where I started.” I cross my arms, but I don’t stop soaking her in. Sometimes, I can’t quite believe she’s back, that I could have another shot at getting the future I once wanted more than anything.

“Makes my stone-cold heart question whether I’ve done the right thing staying in Bellerive. Maybe my version of whatever that is exists out in the world somewhere. Someplace I’ve never been, will never be.”

“Want to hear the kicker? I told her I could forgive her for anything if she’d just give us another shot.

And I’m pretty sure she turned me down.” The thought causes my voice to get raspy at the end.

To have her this close, to know she’ll be this close for months, and to have the answer to my question be a no is almost intolerable.

“You ever considered becoming a TV producer?”

“No,” Cal says with a chuckle. “I don’t work for other people, in case you haven’t noticed. That’s why I like it out here. I decide who I interact with and when. Got people hired for all the rest.” He gives me a side-eye. “You must regret telling Stewart to go fuck himself.”

“I can’t regret that,” I say and release a deep sigh.

“He would have been an asshole to her, and no matter what does or doesn’t happen between us again, I could never knowingly hurt her or see her hurt.

” The black dog is panting her way through more contractions.

“But I don’t know how to be around her and not want more. ”

“Still the same bullshit holding her back?”

“Sort of. But I think it might be more that she doesn’t believe we can get past our old hurts.”

“Our? What’d you do to her ?”

I scratch the back of my neck and try to formulate a coherent thought. “I don’t know,” I say, feeling my way through my response. “But it definitely feels like something bigger happened. I can’t explain it. She thinks I’ll be mad, but she didn’t cheat.”

“I’d have been shocked if she had,” Cal says, going to the fridge. “Beer?”

“No, I gotta drive them home.”

“I’m sure Maren would.”

I just stare at him, and he laughs.

“Forgot who I was talking to,” he says, popping the top off the bottle and taking a swig. “She thinks you’ll be mad at her…” His expression gets pensive, and he shakes his head. “I got nothing.”

“She never wanted me to get involved in her family drama. Was almost desperate to keep me away from any of it. Part of me wonders…” But I don’t even want to think it, let alone say it.

“If she was in legal hot water when she left?” Cal frowns. “Wouldn’t you have heard?”

“Maybe not? I went pretty far down the private investigator route looking for her. In hindsight, my eighteen-year-old ass must have hired the world’s worst PI. She was still in New York. She got a fucking degree.” I drag a hand through my hair and wish I’d said yes to the beer.

“A lot of fun things about being eighteen. How dumb we were and how smart we thought we were wasn’t one of them.”

“I didn’t look into anything on the island. If she made a bad choice, one she thought I wouldn’t like, that might make things hard for me, legally…”

“She’d have wanted to protect you from the fallout,” Cal fills in. “The same way you’d do for her. Again with the being eighteen and thinking we know it all.”

“If whatever happened would have put her in jail, I’d have moved heaven and earth to take the fall for her.”

“And Celia Tucker would have moved heaven and earth to keep you out of jail. Look what she did for Gage.”

“Yeah, well…” I sigh. “Not sure Gage would say that Mom was helpful in that situation. I love her, but her help comes with strings, always.”

“You did wonder whether Celia ran Hollyn off the island back then,” Cal reminds me. “Did you ever work up the nerve to ask?”

“Mom said she didn’t. Promised me she didn’t.

” I run my hands through my hair. I’d needed liquid courage to ask my mother back then.

One too many gold rushes, and I was grilling her, determined to get to the truth, even if it meant my relationship with my mother was fractured forever.

“And why would Hollyn think I’d be mad at her if my mom was to blame for her leaving? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“The easiest way is to press Hollyn to tell you.”

“No,” I counter, “the easiest way is to let it go. As long as whatever took place back then isn’t going to happen again, none of that matters. She wasn’t unfaithful, and that’s really the only thing I couldn’t have stomached, would have struggled to get over.”

Cal raises his eyebrows and takes another long sip of his beer. “We’ll see how long that certainty lasts. Curiosity, man. Even if you can get past the hurt, you’ll always wonder why.”

“As long as I’ve got her again,” I say, “I don’t need to understand why.” And despite what Hollyn said earlier, I’m almost sure that’s true.

By the time the last puppy is born, it’s the middle of the night. Kinsley and Maren have made plans to get Kinsley out to the runs, hikes, and paddles around the campground for the rest of the week, with Maren playing coach and taxi driver.

“Since I’m already going to be out here,” Kinsley says, eyeing Cal and then the ten black puppies nestled into their mother, “maybe I could help look after the puppies each day after training?”

“No,” Hollyn says without a moment’s hesitation. “Maren’s a busy woman, and I don’t have a car to come pick you up. We’re not inconveniencing her.”

“My schedule is pretty tight some days,” Maren admits, but I can hear the reluctance in her voice. She’s already said she thinks Kinsley is a strong runner, and there’s nothing my sister loves more than tapping into potential. She won’t want to deter Kinsley from training in any way.

“I can play Uber driver,” I say. “My schedule is flexible. I can pick her up or drop her off. She can stay longer and help Cal here at the farm—I mean, campground.” I wink at Cal, and he rolls his eyes.

The last thing he’ll want is regular company, but I also know he won’t break Kinsley’s heart just because he enjoys his solitude.

“Really?” Kinsley’s tired but delighted gaze meets mine. She reminds me so much of a younger, less jaded version of her sister. I might have disagreed with Hollyn in the moment, but there had been a certain wary, wounded quality to her when we were teenagers.

“Really,” I say. “Assuming it’s okay with Hols.” I nod toward Hollyn, trying out one of my old nicknames for her.

Kinsley’s gaze tracks between me and Hollyn, as though she’s finally catching on that there’s history between us. “What do ya say, Hols?” She lifts her eyebrows at her sister, a challenge.

Hollyn bypasses Kinsley and meets my gaze for one of the first times since we left the car. “You don’t have to…”

“I know,” I say, letting my response sit between us for a beat. “She reminds me of you, though, so it’s hard not to.”

Hollyn flushes, and Maren and Cal pretend to gather up things to get us all out of here. I’m done holding my cards close to my chest. It’s not who I am, and it’s not how I feel.

“It’s fine, Hollyn,” I say, again. “As long as you’re okay with it.”

Hollyn nods, and Kinsley lets out a squeal of delight, rushing over to the mom dog to give her a gentle pat and to speak quietly to her for a moment before gathering up her things.

“You can come play with the puppies too,” I say to Hollyn as we walk to my car.

She shakes her head. “I don’t like getting attached to things I know I can’t keep.”

Her comment is heavy with meaning, but if she thinks I’m one of the things she can’t keep, she’s dead wrong.